DIY Beachy Shell Candle

While cleaning my room out this summer, I found a box with a bunch of shells in it from my Florida trip a long time ago.  When I say a long time ago I mean when I was a young child. You can probably tell when the last time I properly cleaned my room was. It was in a box on the top shelf in my closet and I don’t generally clean up there okay?

So I decided to make something useful out of them rather than just leaving them in a box their whole “shell” lives.  haha.  I have always liked beachy decor and beach themed things.  So I decided making a candle would be quite fun and also look really cute in my room.

Things you will need:

• glass jar or candle holder
• candle wax or small candles of your choice
• wick
• shells
• hot glue gun or some other type of strong hold glue
• glitter or other decorate items

I started off by going to my local dollar store and picking up a random glass that I thought a candle would look nice in.

No I did not take this picture. I realized I didn’t take a picture of just the empty jar after I picked up, so I found it online.

I then went to Bath and Body Works and picked up various beach smelling mini candles that I could later use to melt down into one big candle.

There were many to choose from but I ended up picking up Peach Bellini, Tiki Beach, Spiced Pineapple Samba, and a few others I can’t remember the name of.

I used an old wick from a candle that was all used up and just stuck it in the bottom, but you can also buy wicks at any craft store or probably even Walmart.  Then I just chopped off the top to a nice length after the candle was all done.

I then put the candles in the microwave to melt the wax, which I don’t recommend doing because it is not the safest way.  The wick could start on fire.  There is also a metal piece on the bottom of every wick.  It’s a slower process but I recommend just forking out the wax and putting it in a sauce pan over low heat.  Or you could just buy the candle wax itself instead of small candles.  I poured the waxes from each candle into the jar, letting it cool before each different colored wax.

For the next part you will want to use a strong hold glue.  I used my hot glue gun and just started gluing shells of different sizes onto the sides.

             

When I was done it just looked like something was missing.  I wanted to spice it up a little bit. I found some leftover glitter that I had used for a different project.  I hot glued a zigzag design up and down each corner and then dumped the glitter on top.  However it seemed to stick everywhere else on the jar as well.  So I used my hair dryer on the cold setting to get the bits off in the other areas.  It didn’t work too well and made a huge mess.  I should have figured. Feel free to also use any other method of applying glitter or other various decorative items because I didn’t seem to do a very good job of that! haha 🙂

This is just the mess from dumping the glitter onto the hot glue. I don’t have a picture of the mess after the blow drying session..haha!

This is the final product: 

I hope you enjoyed this!  It was a lot of fun to make…even making messes. I think it could have turned out a bit better but overall it gives my room a relaxing beachy feel to it.  I have also added a few other beachy things in my room.

I hope you are all enjoying the start to the new school year if you are in school or college!  I know I am. (sarcasm) Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to follow my blog if you’d like!

Holliexo